How to select universities for Ph.D program in US…a different ball game

Selecting Universities for Ph.D a different Ball Game…

Are you a Ph.D student intended to study in US?What kind of approach are you taking?Reaching out to consultants in your city to get you admission for you?All you know is which program you want to do your Ph.D (Mechanical,Electrical,Chemical,Industrial..etc)Is this is the right approach for a Ph.D candidate who is going to do research in US for 4-5 years?

So what’s the right approach?

First,find where you belong to in these 3 stages.

Stage A: You completed your MS in a particular field say Industrial Engineering and you want to pursue Ph.D. You either did a thesis or non-thesis option. You know you want to continue in Industrial Engineering .But unsure of which specialization.

Stage B: You completed MS in certain field (Industrial Engineering).You took different courses and you know you are interested in Operation Research and want to continue in this area. But unsure of different topics in Operation Research.

Stage C:You completed MS in Industrial Engineering. You know which specialization you would like to pursue for Ph.D.(Operations Research).Now you want to narrow to “Mixed queuing and routing models for production systems in electronics PCB manufacturing”

Most of the students approaching AEG are in Stage A or B and this is not something unusual. If you are in Stage C you’re a student whose goals are very well pre-defined. So which stage I should be in, if Iam applying for Ph.D ? Do you think stage C. Probably not.99.9% of students might not have in-depth planning of what they need at the initial application stages .You get into stage C only after completing your 1st semester course work in your university. Let’s say you managed to come up with precise title of interest. How many universities do research in the same field. You are looking at may be 6-8 universities. What is the chance of getting an admit with score of GRE 1120 in this 6-8 universities especially if they are top ranking. How can you broaden your chance of getting an admit?

Let’s look at ,if you are in Stage B. The number of universities offering Operation Research is more than 150 universities .It means you have chance to look and apply to good safe, target and dream universities. This is where nearly 95% of students are in when they approach us. Students get admit and after working with professors for a semester they exactly know what topic they should select and what they are capable of. You need constant interaction with professor to agree on the topic. This is not something that you can do by e-mailing professor from different continent, although you can mention a topic of interest in your SOP. The chance of getting an admit is higher compared to Stage A or C.

If you are in Stage A and not sure of which specialization area to go we recommend you to take some time and try to get into stage B before approaching us. Eventhough, we can recommend universities for a student at this stage, keeping student interests in mind, as future Ph.D candidate in US we believe you should be capable of narrowing down to Stage B.